I.Ii.3.  It is often supposed that the Priestly Code is somewhat indifferent to the question of the one sanctuary, neither permitting multiplicity of sacrificial centres nor laying stress upon the unity, and that on account of this attitude it must be assigned to an earlier date than Deuteronomy. 1

************************************** 1.  De Wette, in the fifth place of his Habilitationsschrift ueber das Deuteronomium (Jena, 1805):  “De hoc unico cultus sacri loco... priores libri nihil omnino habent.  De sacrificiis tantum unice ante tabernaculum conventus offerendis lex quaedam extat.  Sed in legibus de diebus festis, de primitiis et decimis, tam saepe repetitis, nihil omnino monitum est de loco unico, ubi celebrari et offerri debeant " (Opusc.  Theol, p. 163-165). ****************************************

Such an idea is, to say the least, in the highest degree superficial.  The assumption that worship is restricted to one single centre runs everywhere throughout the entire document.  To appeal specially, in proof of the restriction, to Leviticus xvii. or Josh xxii., is to indicate a complete failure to apprehend the whole tenor of Exodus xxv.-Leviticus ix.  Before so much as a single regulation having reference to the matter of worship can be given (such is the meaning of the large section referred to), the one rightful place wherein to engage in it must be specified.  The tabernacle is not narrative merely, but, like all the narratives in that book, law as well; it expresses the legal unity of the worship as an historical fact, which, from the very beginning, ever since the exodus, has held good in Israel.  One God one sanctuary, that is the idea.  With the ordinances of the tabernacle, which form the sum of the divine revelation on Sinai, the theocracy was founded; where the one is, there is the other.  The description of it, therefore, stands at the head of the Priestly Code, just as that of the temple stands at the head of the legislation in Ezekiel.  It is the basis and indispensable foundation, without which all else would merely float in the air:  first must the seat of the Divine Presence on earth be given before the sacred community can come into life and the cultus into force.  Is it supposes that the tabernacle tolerates other sanctuaries besides itself?  Why then the encampment of the twelve tribes around it, which has no military, but a purely religious significance, and derives its whole meaning from its sacred centre?  Whence this concentration of all Israel into one great congregation [ QHL, (DH ], without its like anywhere else in the Old Testament?  On the contrary, there is no other place besides this at which God dwells and suffers Himself to be seen; no place but this alone where man can draw near to Him and seek His face with offerings and gifts.  This view is the axiom that underlies the whole ritual legislation of the middle part of the Pentateuch.  It is indicated with special clearness by the LPNY (HL MW(D (before the tabernacle), introduced at every turn in the ordinances for sacrifice.